Efficacy of crizotinib versus chemotherapy in treatment of ALK positive non-small cell lung cancer: a meta-analysis

Objective To systematically review the efficacy of crizotinib in the treatment of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods Databases including PubMed, The Cochrane Library, EMbase, CBM, CNKI, VIP and WanFang Data were searched for the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about crizotinib versus chemotherapy in the treatment of ALK positive NSCLC from the establishment to April 2016.Two reviewers independently screened literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted data, and assessed methodological quality of the included studies.Meta-analysis was then performed using RevMan 5.3 software. Results A total of six RCTs involving 838 patients were finally included.Meta-analysis showed that: compared with the chemotherapy group, crizotinib significantly improved the response rate of the patients with ALK positive NSCLC (RR=2.46, 95%CI: 1.60-3.79, P<0.000 1), significantly prolonged the progression free survival (HR=0.47, 95%CI: 0.39-0.57, P<0.000 01), but did not significantly prolong the overall survival (HR=0.92, 95%CI: 0.69-1.24, P=0.59). Conclusions Crizotinib is superior to standard chemotherapy in patients with ALK positive NSCLC, can prolong the progression free survival of patients. Key words: Crizotinib; Non-small cell lung cancer; Chemotherapy; Anaplastic lymphoma kinase; Meta-analysis